


to the threshold

by queenbaskerville



Series: sparks (filled with hope) [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Flash Fic, Gen, Short, enjoy tho, this meanders and doesn't make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21508210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: The day that his family is summoned to see Fire Lord Enji is simultaneously the best and worst day of Kaminari's life.
Series: sparks (filled with hope) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550287
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	to the threshold

The story evolves. It crackles and takes shape. It is let loose. Stories are little dangerous like that.

Kaminari's father always tells the story like this:

Their son was born with yellow eyes. Not quite royalty-gold, but yellow enough that it raised a few questions. This boy is made for greatness, his father said. This boy is going to do great things. 

Of course, when year after year passed and not a lick of flame graced Kaminari's fingertips, his parents' hopes flagged and died. Kaminari turned three without a puff of smoke. He turned four without a single spark. He turned five. Six. Seven. No fire.

Kaminari remembers playing with the bender and non-bender children of his village. He doesn't remember that his parents hadn't cared, at first, whether he was a bender or not—he doesn't remember that they were poor, back then, and were more worried about harvests and sharecropping and selling hay dolls at fire festivals. Firebending wasn't their priority. They wanted their son happy and healthy, and even if he couldn't ben like his mother could—so what?

Kaminari doesn't remember that, because every day since age eight, his parents needed him to be a successful bender in order to survive. They don't say it in so many words. But their summoning, their relocation, their social elevation—all of it is because of Kaminari.

But not his fire. He didn't have any.

This is the part of the story Kaminari's father likes best.

A dark-haired, yellow-eyed boy, standing below a tree, imitating his friends' firebending katas. They weren't _true_ katas—no one in their village could afford something like a firebending teacher—but they were form-ish, which was good enough for energetic little boys. Kaminari stood below a tree and echoed his friend's every hand movement, scooping his arm low, turning it in a circle, pointing up to the sky to call to Agni. He brought his arm down. And lightning came down with him.

"The whole tree caught fire," Kaminari's father says, every time. "It glowed with Agni's blessing. An explosion of holiness."

Kaminari's father doesn't talk about the way the charred bark flew in every direction, one sharp piece striking Kaminari's forehead, leaving the shocked and trembling boy with blood dripping into his left eye. The scar is a thin, white thing, almost invisible now unless someone looks close, so maybe that's for the best. And a boy too afraid of his own power to move from his spot—almost pissing himself out of fear—doesn't make for a good story. Neither does his parents running from their home, screaming his name, terrified that Agni himself had struck their child down on a day without a stormcloud in sight. 

Kaminari's father does talk about Kaminari's mother's dedication to pulling fire from him. Their lessons behind the house every day. Kaminari showed her what he had done, the movement he made, but his fear choked him up and he didn't bend lightning or fire. It took a week of practicing with his mother—patient meditation, breath control, trying to take the fire from her palms and failing—for Kaminari to call lightning again. It's his friend's birthday, one of his non-bender friends, and Kaminari is so excited for his friend to turn eight that when he claps his hands, lightning crackles between them, sparks skittering across the wooden table. 

Kaminari wonders if the scorch marks on that table are still there. If the table is still there. He hasn't been to his hometown in a long time. Not since they left.

The day that his family was summoned to see Fire Lord Enji was simultaneously the best and worst day of Kaminari's life. He'd been bending lightning more consistently, calling it down from the sky when he's excited or panicked, in small, bright handfuls. He'd been happy to show it off to the Fire Nation soldiers coming through their town. Such impressive armor, stark black metal with deep red accents. He'd wanted their attention. He'd gotten it. And much more. A whole group of soldiers arrived at his family's house with a whole _carriage_ to take them to _Caldera_. Kaminari couldn't even help his parents pack their things; he was too excited. He bounced around the house aimlessly, chattering up a storm, not knowing he would never see the house again.

The journey was long. They'd lived on a fringe town, an agricultural spot. Caldera is huge. Kaminari had never seen so many people in one place. 

At this point in the story, Kaminari's father heaps praises upon the Fire Lord's palace, upon the guest rooms they'd stayed in, upon the Fire Lord himself, long may he reign. Kaminari doesn't remember all the things his father talks about—the silk robes, for example, escape his memory—but he remembers the hot baths. His mother had heated baths before, but this was different. There was a bathhouse. A servant's bathhouse, but Kaminari didn't care about that. He thought he'd never been so happily warm in his whole life. He'd never been so clean. All that crystal clear water everywhere that spun brown when the dirt from their journey (and his life) was washed from him.

Kaminari doesn't like listening to the part of the story in which he meets Fire Lord Enji. It was a privilege and an honor, of course it was. Kaminari's not stupid. He knows how lucky he is. How fortunate. How blessed.

Standing in front of the Fire Lord's burning throne, though, hadn't made him feel that way. A strange and powerful man looming above him, flames casting his body in harsh light, commanding him to bend lightning. Kaminari's lucky he bends when he's panicked. When he's terrified out of his damn mind. Eight-year-old Kaminari clapped his hands together and pulled lightning into existence, curled it in a crackling ball, and unleashed it upon the ceiling. 

Kaminari's father doesn't mention the falling ceiling tile. Or that Kaminari fainted right then and there. Kaminari usually tunes him out around now. The story becomes too much about glory and fortune and blessings upon their family. It departs from real life and becomes only a story.

"Kaminari had the honor of training with the princes," Kaminari's father says.

What Kaminari's father doesn't say, and can't say, because he wasn't there: The Fire Lord himself sat in on a few of those training sessions and Kaminari almost killed a servant with his nerve-wracked lightning. Prince Touya was cruel and Prince Shouto was reticent and neither could figure out how to draw lightning from the sky and let it loose on the world. The Fire Sages and the advisors and the trainers all concurred that lightning could only be bent by those who had complete and utter control of themselves, in complete and utter stillness. Kaminari had... whatever the opposite of that was. Panic, excitement, terror, fear, joy. Every sharp and bright feeling could be enough to spill lightning from his fingers, cracking cobblestones and burning rooftops. Kaminari still doesn't know why the Fire Lord in all his wisdom had believed an eight-year-old peasant could train two princes, one his age and one several years older, to bend _lightning_. Even though Kaminari was the youngest person ever to bend it. Even though no one but highly-trained members of the royal family had been seen bending it in the last hundred years. He hadn't figured out his own power, let alone how to teach it to two incredibly gifted firebenders who resented him for something he didn't ask for.

Kaminari was a miracle. He was also a failure. Fire Lord Enji stopped putting him in training with the princes after Kaminari turned ten. He only saw them from a distance after that.

He hadn't been home in two years. His parents were with him, but he only saw them at the end of training days, when he was so burnt-out and exhausted that all he could do was nod himself to sleep over dinner and then collapse into bed. When his training with the princes ended, he and his family were moved out of the palace, but not back home—into a house that must've been meant for a wealthy merchant or low-level noble, still in Caldera. Unfamiliar again—he hadn't even left the palace in two years, and Caldera was strange to him. He had no friends. His family hired a bending trainer in hopes of getting his lightning under control, or getting him to bend fire. He went to a private school. His family received money from the Fire Lord.

Kaminari didn't know why until he turned twelve, and his private school turned into private military academy. He sees his parents on the holidays, on breaks in the academic year when they're allowed home, and on "leave." His father tells the story to guests. He tells it to Kaminari, when Kaminari confesses once or twice that he doesn't know what he's doing. That he wants to give up. Kaminari's father lets the story loose on him like it's a salve and not a prison. Like military academy isn't a prison.

The day Kaminari met the Fire Lord was the best and worst day of his life. He secured his family's future. He doomed his own.

Not that Bakugo Katsuki is doom, exactly. Not really. 

He's hot-tempered and crazy, and he looks like he's going to jump ranks quicker than a jumping frog-lizard, and he screams and hollers at every tiny thing without ever going hoarse, somehow. He brushes his teeth like he's trying to erode them down to nothing so his voice can escape his mouth faster. He's the best and worst friend Kaminari has ever had—best because he's strong, and he's loyal, and he stops everyone else from making fun of Kaminari when he's incompetent at basically everything—worst because sometimes he's thoughtless, which means sometimes he's mean. Bakugo is determined and fiery and wants to conquer the world, so he's the best because he brings out the best in Kaminari, and the worst because now Kaminari wants to help him conquer the world.

Bakugo's also the worst because he convinces Kaminari to help him bleach his hair, and then Kaminari wants to bleach his own hair, which Bakugo encourages too much. They show up to training in the morning, Bakugo's hair perfectly blonde, because of course it is, like a morning cloud, and Kaminari's turned a sour yellow overnight, because of course it did, like a lemonberry. They both get punished for that. Looking crazy. But there's no real rule against dyed hair, not in the handbook that Kaminari pulls up and has Bakugo read to him (the words swim in front of his eyes, after one too many lightning blasts that day), so they get to keep their hairstyles. Keep bleaching them. It's a bit of control over Kaminari's life when before he'd felt like he'd had none. It feels good. He almost understands why Bakugo asked him to do it.

Sometimes, in his bunk late at night, Kaminari stares at his hands. Kaminari's fingertips have long been charred black from poorly-controlled, panicked lightning strikes. He has little sensation in most of his finger tips, and on some fingers, no sensation at all. These are hands that can pull lightning from the sky, but not always in ways that Kaminari can control. They're hands that earn him a watchful eye from every teacher and commander, knowing he could really be something, that he really has promise, knowing that the Fire Lord himself handpicked Kaminari for military service. They're hands that took Bakugo by the elbow one night and dragged him into a stairwell when they were being chased by upperclassmen bullies, which earned him a heated slap on the back of the head and a steadfast friendship. They're hands that know how to wield a spear, and a sword, but can't bend fire to save their life. They're hands that haven't killed yet but will, someday.

Kaminari turns fourteen. He's a prodigy with lightning and an incompetent mess in practically everything else, and he's pressed into service under young Captain Katsuki's command—here are the promotions, thrust into their hands. The early graduations. The teary goodbye from his mother. The proud letter from his father, with highlights of a story Kaminari knows by heart, meant as words of encouragement. A feeling in Kaminari's gut that's both sick and eager, scared and exhilarated. They march tomorrow. He'll be at Bakugo's right hand. They're going out into the world, beyond the boundaries of the Fire Nation. Kaminari will have to strike sparks from his hands into the face of an enemy.

The Avatar has returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I found an old note I barely remember writing with ideas about a huge A:TLA / BNHA crossover thing and I griped to myself for a little bit about how I don't have the time or energy to write such a huge story, with all that worldbuilding and plot, and then I realized... I don't have to. 
> 
> so this could turn into a brief series of shorts / flash pieces for that universe. you're welcome?
> 
> I wrote this all in a few hours so sorry if it sucks? it was just an idea that wouldn't leave my mind: imagine being kaminari and you can bend fucking lightning but can’t manage fire. imagine being a tiny kid and ur parents are like “aw look he’s getting into a pose, he’s gonna firebend,” and then there’s a bright flash of light and a tree explodes.
> 
> also PLEASE look at this fanart, it's what sparked this idea however long ago: [link](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj5yZ0kF2Uw/)


End file.
